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In This Issue
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Latest Product Enhancements
Performance by SKU Reports Now Available
One of our most requested features, in March we launched Performance
by SKU reports. These reports show you impressions
and clicks for each of your products. This detailed performance
data will help you to optimize your ads to drive
the best results from your business.
Performance by SKU reports contain the following information:
Report Start and End Date, Merchant Token, Merchant Name,
SKU, Click count, Impression count, Click Through Rate
(CTR), Currency, Total Spend, and Average CPC.
Follow these steps to retrieve your reports:
- Log into Seller Central
- Click on the "Reports" Tab
- Click on "Performance by SKU" in the blue header
- Request daily, weekly or monthly reports as required, or schedule them to publish to Seller Central
- Click the "Download" button in the "Check Report Status & Download" section
There are a few things to keep in mind when using Performance
by SKU reports:
- Reports are stored in your account for up to 90 days
- The maximum number of reports displayed in your account is 50
- Only those products which received clicks or impressions during the specified time period will be listed in your reports.
If you’d like to learn more, join our free webinar on Wednesday, April 28 at 10:00 AM Pacific Time. Register today.
Ad Placement by Product
We’ve recently introduced a new column called “Amazon
Placement" to
View Products in Seller Central. This column replaces
the Searchable column and tells you which placements each
product is eligible for on Amazon.com.
There are two values you will see in this column - "Targeted"
and "All".
“Targeted” means that your product will be discovered by customers in contextually related placements on detail pages.
“All” means that your product will be discovered
by customers in search and browse results in addition to
contextually related placements on detail pages. Detail
page placements include the Buy Box and display ad placements.
Search and browse placements include results pages and
display ad formats.
The visibility of your ads in these placements is based on your historic click-through-rate, bid and relevance. Increasing your bid will improve the ranking of your ads and therefore your priority in all placements.
See detailed descriptions and examples of these ad placements here.
Optimize Your Ads
Improve Your Product Categorization
Providing descriptive category information for each of
your products is essential. Amazon uses the category information
you provide to determine each products' location and bid
category.
Below are our top tips to improve the categorization of your products:
- Provide descriptive category information
For example, use “Home & Garden > Bed and Bath > Bathroom > Bathtubs” instead of “Bathtubs.”
If you are unsure what category information you should use for your products, search for a similar item on Amazon.com. Follow the browse breadcrumb trail and use this trail as the category for your product.
For example, the category tree for “blue thread” on Amazon.com is: Home & Garden > Sewing, Craft & Hobby > Thread
- Avoid using marketing or promotional messages
Promotional text such as “Christmas specials”, “Gifts from Her”, “On Sale”, and “Under $50” does not help Amazon to categorize your product. It does not describe the product type and cannot be used to identify the bid category. Instead provide product specific information such as “baby safety chair”, “outdoor solar lighting” or “home décor - tableware - placemats”.
We’ve put together a table which provides examples
of how Amazon organizes product types by category. The
Category ID List shows examples of the products that belong
in each category. For example, Furniture products include
shelves, desks and sofa but DOES NOT INCLUDE baby furniture
and patio furniture. If you are unsure of the category
of your products, refer to this table.
Learn more about providing good category information for your products.
Use Notifications to Avoid Missing Sales
Configuring your email notifications will help you stay up to date with your account status.
We recently talked with a seller who missed three months of sales because they were unaware of a payment failure. During this time the sellers’ ads were suspended and received no traffic from Amazon.com despite being updated daily.
The seller later realized this could have been avoided if they had provided a specific email address for Payment Failure notifications.
There are 8 notifications designed to help you stay up
to date with key account events - 3 critical
and 5 optional. Critical notifications default to being
sent to the email address which you use to log in to your
Seller Central account, but you can change this. Optional
notifications will not be sent unless you opt-in and specify
an email address.
To set up your notifications:
- Log into Seller Central
- Click on the “Settings” Tab
- Click on “Account Info”
- Edit “Notification Preferences”
- Enter e-mail addresses to which you would like us to send each type of notification
News and Announcements
Come See Us At...
We will be at ad:tech San Francisco from April 19-21,
2010. You can find us in Meeting Room 6 between 10am-12
pm on Tuesday, April 20 and Wednesday, April 21. Or, email
us at adtech-meeting@amazon.com to schedule a meeting. We
hope to see you there.
New Seller Forums
We recently launched Product Ads seller forums. We will
be posting announcements and news to
these forums, but they are primarily a way for sellers
to ask questions, share their knowledge and experience with each other.
Our first thread announced the launch of Performance by SKU reports. Tell us what you think and be the first to share your experience of using our newest reports.
Need Some Help with Creating Your Product Feed?
In November we hosted a webinar on Building Effective Feeds. This webinar covered important product information, how to fix feed errors and where customers find your ads.
Rated 4 out of 5 by webinar attendees, you can watch this webinar today to make sure your ads have the best chance of driving Amazon.com customers to your website.
Q&A
Q. I am already using the Selling on Amazon
program. Is there any benefit to using Product Ads as well?
A. Yes. Using both Selling on Amazon and Product Ads is useful for ensuring 100% of your selection is listed on Amazon.com. Product Ads is great for listing products which require customization in the order process, are subject to manufacture restrictions or have unique shipping requirements. These types of products can be challenging to accommodate in the Amazon.com shopping cart. Listing them with Product Ads is a great alternative. Customers will be able to find your products and purchase directly from your website.
If you already list 100% of your selection with Selling
on Amazon, there is little value in using both programs.
Learn more about Selling on Amazon and other Amazon Services.
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